Objective

The goal of obs4MIPs is to enable the research community to more effectively use observational products for Earth System Model (ESM) Evaluation, Research and Development (ERD) and to facilitate stronger and more frequent interactions between observations and modelling communities with the aim of accelerating model improvements.

Tasks

The obs4MIPs Steering Panel is responsible for the following tasks:

  1. Establish and evolve dataset formatting specifications and metadata standards for observational data sets that are consistent with standards used in major climate model intercomparison efforts.
  2. Encourage the application of these standards to observational datasets with utility for model evaluation including those developed by other WCRP activities.
  3. Seek community input and feedback on the value of products conforming to the standards.
  4. Establish, deploy, maintain, and update criteria and a process by which contributed datasets are accepted for inclusion.
  5. Provide guidance and oversight of the organisation and publication of obs4MIPs data.
  6. Monitor and review new submissions.
  7. Recommend changes that might be made to ESGF and, or other platforms, to facilitate management of, and access to, obs4MIPs datasets.
  8. Provide accessible information on developing, proposing, and applying observational data sets for model evaluation.
  9. Coordinate the above activities with major climate model intercomparison efforts (e.g.CMIP) and liaise with other related WCRP bodies and activities within ESMO.
  10. Recommend additions and improvements to CMIP standard model output to facilitate model evaluation against available observations.

History

The Observations for Model Intercomparisons Project (obs4MIPs) was initiated by PCMDI in 2010 to make observational products more accessible for climate model evaluation and research, with a particular focus on the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP), a major initiative of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP). At WGCM16 in 2012, obs4MIPs was proposed as a pilot activity of WCRP. As a result, obs4MIPs was formalised in early 2013 through a WDAC Task Team on Observations for Model Evaluation,  with reporting obligations to WDAC (WCRP Data Advisory Council) and WMAC (WCRP Model Advisory Council). A series of papers provide background material for the origins and advancement of obs4MIPs (Gleckler et al., 2011; Teixeira et al., 2014; Ferraro et al., 2015; Waliser et al., 2020).

In 2020 the WCRP Joint Scientific Council approved the formation of a new core project, Earth System Modelling and Observations (ESMO) to facilitate the integration and coordination of climate modeling and observational efforts. Obs4MIPs became an ESMO panel. Open this link for details on other ESMO panels and projects.

Since the inception of obs4MIPs, delivery of large- to global- scale CMIP-aligned gridded products has been the priority, but with CMIP related research increasingly focusing on regional scales, higher resolution, and process relevant evaluation is becoming more important. Now that obs4MIPs is part of ESMO, it is expected that inclusion of higher frequency and regional products will become an increasing obs4MIPs priority (see recommendations from Ferraro et al., 2015).

Obs4MIPs Data Standards and Availability

Obs4MIPs data is required to conform to the obs4MIPs Data Specifications (ODS) which are closely aligned with the CMIP model data standard, which facilitates the comparison of obs4MIPs and CMIP data. The latest version of this data standard is available here.

Similar to CMIP model data, obs4MIPs observational data sets are hosted on the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF). Version controlled obs4MIPs compliant datasets published on ESGF are made available via Metagrid, with version control and other registered content managed through a separate Github repository.

Currently, obs4MIPs focuses on large scale gridded data products. All global and regional-scale grids that have been adopted by models are accepted. To ensure compatibility with the largest number of models, a regular latitude x longitude global grid is currently recommended, but data providers are free to select the grid most appropriate for their observational product. Currently, un-gridded in-situ data products are not accepted, although efforts are underway to introduce new datasets to obs4MIPs as well as to update existing products.

Climate Forecast (CF) metadata conventions

The CF metadata conventions provide standards for the description of climate and weather data prepared in NetCDF. The climate modeling community already follow these conventions closely with the CMIP data specifications. Thus, the obs4MIPs data specifications have been technically aligned with the CMIP standard output.

Climate Model Output Rewriter (CMOR)

The obs4MIPs Steering Panel recommends that obs4MIPs compliant gridded products are prepared using CMOR to ensure technical alignment between CMIP and obs4MIPs. The Climate Model Output Rewriter (CMOR) was originally developed to help modelling groups contributing to CMIP to prepare simulations in accordance with the CMIP data conventions. In preparation for CMIP6, the latest version (CMOR3) was improved to include the preparation of gridded observations.

References:

Ferraro, R., D. Waliser, P. Gleckler, K. Taylor, and V. Eyring, 2015: Evolving obs4MIPs to Support Phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. 96:8 ES131-ES133, doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-14-00216.1

Gleckler, P., R. Ferraro, and D. Waliser, 2011: Improving use of satellite data in evaluating climate models, Eos Trans. AGU, 92(20), doi.org/10.1029/2011EO200005

Teixeira, J., D. Waliser, R. Ferraro, P. Gleckler, T. Lee and G. Potter, 2014: Satellite Observations for CMIP5: The Genesis of Obs4MIPs. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 95, 1329–1334, doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-12-00204.1

Waliser, D., Gleckler, P., Ferraro, R., Taylor, K., Ames, S., Biard, J. Bosilovich, M., Brown, O., Chepfer, H., Cinquini, L., Durack, P., Eyring, V., Mathieu, P., Lee, T., Pinnock, S., Potter, G., Rixen, M., Saunders, R., Schulz, J., Tuma, M. (2020). Observations for Model Intercomparison Project (Obs4MIPs): status for CMIP6. Geosc. Mod. Dev. 13. 2945-2958, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-2945-2020